Competing for a Cause

The school year has begun, and earlier this week President Obama talked to students across the nation about the importance of persisting and succeeding in school. He challenged them to work hard, set educational goals and take responsibility for their learning. “We need every single one of you to develop your talents, skills and intellect so you can help solve our most difficult problems,” the president said to a group of students at Virginia’s Wakefield High School. “If you don’t do that — if you quit on school — you’re not just quitting on yourself, you’re quitting on your country.”

Increasingly, that’s no easy task. Things many of us took for granted, like clean, safe classrooms, up-to-date textbooks and programs in art, music and physical education, are in peril, both domestically and internationally. Though the building industry is at a near standstill, the World Bank estimates that 10 million new classrooms will be required to reach its target on education as outlined in the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. In addition, tens of millions of crumbling school facilities — including many in the United States — are in urgent need of upgrading. Meeting this need for classroom space will constitute the largest building project the world has ever undertaken.

Section Eight Design/Open Architecture Network Design by Section Eight.

The demand for safe, sustainable, smart classroom design has never been greater. To help bring awareness to this growing problem, the humanitarian design non-profit Architecture for Humanity, in partnership with Orient Global, launched, this past January, the Open Architecture Challenge: Classroom, a competition inviting the architecture, design and engineering community to collaborate directly with students and teachers to rethink the classroom of the future. Collaboration was not just encouraged but required: design teams had to engage community members and other beneficiaries of the classroom in the process. On Tuesday, AFH announced a winner, culled from over 1,000 teams from more than 65 countries: Teton Valley Community School (TVCS) in Victor, Idaho, and architecture firm Section Eight Design.

Many schools in the United States and around the world share constraints similar to those faced by the TVCS. Operating out of makeshift classrooms converted from former homes, lack of space and a learning environment that does not support school curriculum impede students’ performance.

Teton’s current space problems are so severe that half the student body is taught at a nearby satellite campus. The school struggles to accommodate its students and prepare them for the challenges of the 21st century. Working closely with Teton Valley students, parents, teachers and community members, Section Eight began to uncover the school’s requirements, ultimately designing a classroom that provides sustainable, cost-effective teaching spaces but also expands the learning environment beyond the four walls of the classroom. (See a video of the design process here.)

DESCRIPTIONSection Eight Design/Open Architecture Network Section Eight’s sustainable teaching spaces.

Victor, Idaho, where the school is located, is a rural town with a per capita income of $16,740, so the $50,000 prize from AFH provides a significant boost to their upcoming capital campaign. Section Eight’s design allows for a pay-as-you-go expansion plan, so funds can be allocated toward one or two singular classrooms as they become available.

The design offers additional energy and cost-savings benefits: geothermal and solar energy, together with a rainwater catchment systems, will allow the school to function 100 percent off the grid. Movable, modular panels let students reconfigure space as needed and let the school expand and contract with its student population. The building’s connection to its site enhances place-based learning — working with farm animals, gardening for sustenance, participating in local field trips and so on.

Site-and community-specific design solutions like Section Eight’s and the other AFH finalists — including a re-locatable classroom design by Perkins and Will for Druid Hills High School in Georgia, an urban classroom upgrade by IDEO for Rumi Schools of Excellence in Hyderabad, India, and a rural classroom designed by Gifford LLP for the Building Tomorrow Academy in Uganda — can provide better models. Several schools that participated in the Challenge: Classroom have committed to implementing their designs outside the competition.

Fortunately, a number of design organizations are paying increasing attention to the intersection of design and education in the U.S. and internationally.

Design Revolution: 100 Products That Empower People“Design Revolution” by Emily Pilloton.

Project H, for example, is sponsoring many initiatives, including Furniture for Rural Schools (in partnership with Lazos IAP, a non-profit organization concerned with the infrastructure and learning quality of Mexican rural education), which focuses on the repair and improvement of school furniture, and Learning Landscapes, a scalable, grid-based system of play for elementary math education that’s designed to combine active movement and competition. For more on these projects and others like them, see the new book by Project H’s director, Emily Pilloton, “Design Revolution: 100 Products That Empower People.”

Good design can facilitate learning. And good design education can help a new generation of designers address challenges from health to transportation to domestic living, as two other competitions that are also announcing their winners this month demonstrate.

Engineer James Dyson designed 5,127 prototypes for his game-changing vacuum, the Dual Cyclone. Until the 5,128th, when he decided to create his own company, Dyson’s technology was routinely rejected by other vacuum manufacturers. This frustrating process no doubt inspired him to create a James Dyson Award competition to encourage and inspire the next generation of design engineers. The competition brief was deceptively simple: design something that solves a problem.

“Experimentation and creativity need to be cultivated amongst young designers if we are to see future innovations emerging,” explains Dyson. “This award is about giving the next generation of engineers a head start.”

Most folding bikes are too pricey, too heavy, and/or too complicated to open and close. But for his Dyson Award entry, Dominic Hargreaves developed one of the best solutions to a folding bike that I’ve seen. The designer felt that most folding bikes seemed to be just too much of a compromise or just didn’t collapse into a small enough form convenient for day to day use.

The Contortionist, collapsed, and ready to ride.

Named “The Contortionist” — which will either frighten or amuse potential users — his bike’s parts all fit in between the circumference of its 26-inch wheels when the bike is folded. And the wheels rotate, so the folded package can be rolled along like a carry-on bag rather than carried.

The 6Dot Braille Labeler6Dot Prototypes

The 6Dot Braille Labeler, designed by designed by MIT students Adelaide Calbry-Muzyka, Josh Karges, Karina Pikhart, Maria Prus, Trevor Shannon and Rachel Tatem, addresses a problem most of us have the luxury of not worrying about too much: the use of labels by the blind to identify everything from homework assignments to prescription medicine bottles. The design team developed a portable device that embosses Braille onto commercially available adhesive labeling tape, using a standard Braille keyboard. User research showed that the blind are often frustrated with existing hard-to-use and error-prone labeling tools, inspiring the team to create a portable, ergonomic and electronic alternative. A provisional patent has been filed, and two companies have expressed interest in manufacturing and distributing the 6Dot.

Prio Paper Cast by Nicholas Riddle Prio Paper Cast by Nicholas Riddle

For student inventor Nicholas Riddle, the problem in need of solving was a scarcity of both resources and clear communication on accident sites and in disaster situations. His clever Prio Paper Cast is a lightweight, stabilizing cast made out of intricately woven paper that can be shipped flat and in large quantities. It can be affixed in less than two minutes and using it requires no prior medical experience. Thoughtful features include easy-to-read ID straps for triage, with instructions to medical personnel. And, the cast’s grid-like construction allows doctors and nurses to administer medicine and injections without removing the supportive structure.

Yusuf Muhammad

The winning entry in the Dyson Award winner addressed another emergency situation: the over 60,000 fires that occur in United Kingdom dwellings each year, resulting in approximately 450 deaths and 11,000 injuries. A team of industrial design students from the Royal College of Art developed the “Automist,” an automatic fire suppression system designed for the kitchen (where 60 percent of domestic blazes originate). Activated by a device similar to a smoke alarm (though it won’t go off when the toast burns), Automist is installed on any tap and utilizes water-mist technology to fill the kitchen volume with fog to suppress the fire.

Courtesy of Electrolux Top: Penghao Shan’s Water-catcher; bottom: Dulyawat Wongnawa’s refrigerator.

In a strange coincidence, another vacuum cleaner company, Electrolux, just announced the finalists of its annual Design Lab student competition (winners will be announced on Sept. 24 at 100% Design London). More specific in its brief, Electrolux’s “Designs for the Next 90 Years” (in honor of the company’s 90th anniversary) asked students to design products that will shape how people prepare and store food, wash clothes and do dishes over the next nine decades. Of the competition focus, Henrik Otto, senior vice president of Global Design at Electrolux, explained, “I think future consumers will want individualized products, products they can learn from and that will adapt to their time and space.”

In keeping with the competition’s goals, these entries are more conceptual, more futuristic: Dulyawat Wongnawa developed a refrigerator that teleports and organizes food. Penghao Shan created the Water-catcher — a device that seems part-beach ball, part-hummingbird, and that flies around catching rainwater or humidity to convert to drinking water. Zhenpeng Li’s Naturewash uses negative ions to wash nano-technology-covered textiles. It looks like a deck chair, and that’s part of its playful functionality: you can wash your garment while reclining on it.

Courtesy of Electrolux Zhenpeng Li’s Naturewash.

I was also smitten with the Bifoliate by Toma Brundzaite, from Lithuania. It’s a space-saving wall-mounted dishwasher that doubles as kitchen cupboard and — ta-da! — it never needs emptying.

Courtesy of Electrolux Toma Brundzait’s Bifoliate.

In his speech to students Tuesday, Obama said, “Every single one of you has something you’re good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That’s the opportunity an education can provide . . . . Maybe you could be an innovator or an inventor — maybe even good enough to come up with the next iPhone or a new medicine or vaccine — but you might not know it until you do a project for your science class.” Kudos to the sponsoring organizations of this trio of competitions for their commitment to fostering student creativity, collaboration and innovation.

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great inspiring projects ..

Just provide a quiet clean space, with comfortable seats and desks…and without too many visual distractions. Quit all the architecture-speak rhetoric; stop being so incredibly self-conscious and self important….and realize that the most important part of education has nothing to do with architecture and “design”.

A great teacher does not need amazing design in a classroom/school. First things first.
Vicki

The dishwasher looks like a good idea right now. You give up something in terms of wall space, but eliminating the drudgery of unloading the thing must be worth it.

Yes, because quiet, clean, comfortable spaces without too many visual distractions just happen all by themselves…who needs an architect?

Section 8’s proposal didn’t sound filled with architecture-speak rhetoric- it sounded like a design sensitive to the budget constraints of a resource-poor school district, that would allow them to make the most of the space they have. That is a task rather more difficult than it sounds.

could not disagree more, Rich. “Design” is not some kind of add-on, it is simply the arrangement of man-made things. So everything is “designed,” whether we, or even the “designer,” is conscious of it or not. We see what happens when the people in charge of schools, or any other public place, put no thought into design. Instead, every decision is dictated by immediate influences – perhaps a lack of money, or a lack of understanding the needs of those who will use the space, or just simply a lack of motivation and imagination. We get ugly, barely functioning spaces that are strictly utilitarian, depressing and sometimes downright de-humanizing. These designers are showing us that a little imagination into how we arrange our built environment need not be costly, and can pay tremendous dividends by creating a more useful (and even inspiring) environment where we can live our day to day lives more deliberately and fully. What’s so “self conscious and self important” about that?

Sorry Rich, but for many people the quality of the spaces & places in which they live, work, study and play are vitally important. Too many schools lack large windows that provide natural light, but have plenty of dark, boring cinder block hallways. Our many older schools are also woefully energy inefficient.

Most important, though, is the way that the quality of place influences behavior for the worse or the better. That is why it is vitally important that communities across the country identify the places they love and frequent to make sure that those places—whether built or natural—are protected or improved over time and through growth and change.

—John

The most important part of an education is learning to think creatively to solve problems; it is not memorization and regurgitation. “Imagination is more important than knowledge” (Albert Einstein). Students today are not tasked enough with this challenge, and it is nice to see someone encouraging this line of education.

Why the hostility toward architects?

Its sad that most Americans have no idea how good design decisions can improve lives and have trouble even identifying why X works better than Y.

Bad lighting, bad acoustics, humming machines and ventilation and flickerng lights are what I remember from my “charming” old school building. I’m sure the school authority then also believed a space should be quiet, clean and comfortable but they had no idea how to achieve that and certainly were not capable of going beyond that to create a school that was a joy to work and learn in.

lana@thinkmoreinc.com September 11, 2009 · 11:05 am

comment #2 points up the divide between designers and the public. And I totally agree with response #5. While at least some of the projects described here resolve some real human problems, the majority of the public still feels that design is something frivolous – decorative, superfluous, pretty pictures thought up by skinny people in black clothes and funky glasses. This image is not helped by either the photo or the vocabulary of this blogger. But I commend her for trying to breach this gap. I can’t wait for a day when people in this country start to turn to designers to solve real problems, as they did 60 years ago (think Ray and Charles Eames) and as they still do in countries like Sweden and Denmark. And for the designers – it’s time to demystify, humanize and detrivialize design. //www.thinkmoreinc.com

truly inspiring environments allow kids to explore. they teach themselves more effectively than a talking adult will.

and yet a truly inspiring teacher is a priceless treasure.

Zaha Hadid’s design for a car plant in germany improved efficiency and increased worker/management collaboration and relations. So design when its good and well thought out for the users of the building has a significant impact. But then people like RICH believe all you need is a big cardboard box to learn. Maybe people like RICH should move out of their 3500 sq foot biege suburban Energy Hog of a Mac Mansion into a cardboard box…we only wish.

Do the pedals function on the contortionist bike? The video never shows the bike being powered by the pedals. Where’s the belt or chain???

Finally, we’re seeing promising new technology that isn’t all about information, communication or entertainment. We have enough of those things. I’d like to see more designers concentrate on is a practical waterless toilet, and some kind of automatic toilet cleaner. The day that nobody has to clean a toilet by hand again will be a great day for all humanity.

Design in America: Students just need a clean quiet comfortable space and the Dallas Cowboys need a 25000 sq ft video screen

i have had 20 years of experience in the design and construction of public schools in the United states,and offer the following comments:any change in the design,construction,and ownership of public schools at this time is constrained by the existing codes,laws,practices and customs which prevent change.In order to circumvent this reality,The current practices and /or elimination of school boards,educational consultants,building codes,construction unions, and other embeaded factors which have had financial interests in this business will have to change. Forming parties which would design, build and own school buildings and lease them to public governments as tennants would be the way to go,in my opinion.

Maybe we should compare the best designed Prison and the best designed public school, and ask parents and student which one they would prefer.

What is a quiet space? What is comfortable? What are visual distractions? Solving that is “Design”. That is Architecture, and it is integrated into everything around us.

Rich must be from (the former )east germany.

If teachers weren’t so defensive and insecure and had more animation, advocacy, and chutzpah about their environments then architects wouldn’t feel so overwhelmingly needed to supply it. Maybe that’s why we’re here for you and are advocating in the area where we do know best. Maybe you should tell the infectious disease experts to stay out of classroom hygiene, too?

That said, I don’t think its fair to call Rich a GDRist. He just doesn’t respect experts in a supporting role in the educational experience. People try to help and teachers just snarl. I wish someone was this interested in my workplace.

Yes, for #2, perhaps not architecture and “design,” but solid, dark wood walls and plenty of canings. Why do today’s classrooms need to be modeled on the worst classrooms at Eton, ca. 1870? Depressing! have taught with a lot of different age groups in 40 years–4th-graders through college students–and this variety involved a large spectrum of classroom settings. Unless we were working outdoors on a nice day, the lighting was invariably poor. Please DO turn good architects and designers loose on classrooms–and especially their lighting!

I’m not opposed to desgn at all…I’m opposed to “design”.

My sister started teaching in our parent’s basement. Our younger friends changed their lives to make sure that they could spend the summers down there with her.

I wish we could see a lot more like this, and less of Nicolai Ouroussoff’s unlimited arrogance, in the Times.

The futuristic “products” are a lot less interesting than the realistic ones, though.

Behavior is a function of people interacting with their environment. Design and architecture are critical elements of helping create the behaviors we hope to see emerge in classrooms and schools. To not acknowledge that is just foolhardy at best.